Buzz Burrell: The Limitless Possibilities Of FKTs
About this episode:
In this week’s episode, coach Hillary talks with Buzz Burrell a trail running veteran, former record holder for the Colorado Trail and the John Muir Trail, and pioneer of the Fastest Known Time ( FKT ) movement.
Episode Highlights:
- The basics of FKTs
- The different FKT categories
- How to plan your own FKT
- Building creativity into your own running and adventures
- Exploring the boundaries of human limits
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform
Episode Transcription:
Hillary Allen:
Today, we have a very special guest, my good friend Buzz Burrell. Hi, Buzz.
Buzz Burrell:
Good to see you, Hillary.
Hillary Allen:
So we’re doing a remote podcast actually. I’m here in France. You’re in Boulder, Colorado where I also have a home base. So yeah, but without further ado, I just wanted to do a quick introduction for those of you who don’t know Buzz. And I hope by the end of this, you guys will be harassing him to try to hang out with him or learn something about his world and the SKT, which we’re kind of going to get into today.
Hillary Allen:
So Buzz is a general manager of Ultimate Direction, a market-leading manufacturer for tools of the self propelled person.
Buzz Burrell:
That’s correct.
Hillary Allen:
[crosstalk 00:01:08] cool packs that they’re coming out with. He’s the co-founder with Peter Bakwin and Jeff Schuler of the fastestknowntime.com. This is a worldwide credible source for FKTs. He’s a previous FKT holder. That’s the Fastest Known Time, we’ll talk about this more, of the Colorado trail and the John Muir trail, and many others. He likes to explore. He invented the rim to rim to rim, but you got to swim across the Colorado river.
Buzz Burrell:
Not alt, we called that one.
Hillary Allen:
Not alt, I was curious about how this works. And then something called the LA freeway, which this is basically in the local mountains outside of Boulder and the Indian peaks. We’ll talk about this a little bit more later, but this is a super interesting route and it’s only ever been successfully completed by three people, three times to date. He’s done a lot from being the USATF masters 10k champion, trail champion, to climbing Aconcagua in one day, that was in the same year. He wished Strava listed dancing as an official activity. I agree with you for that. And he says he hasn’t died yet. So, all right, this is quite the introduction, but Buzz so, welcome. It’s so good to have you.
Buzz Burrell:
Thank you. Thank you. Strava has got to get it together. I mean, it’s been really great, but unless they list dancing as an activity, it’s a little limited.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, I agree. I know. I wish that they had a lot more activities as well. Recently I was in [Cremiere 00:02:55] this summer and I rode the gondola up and I was trying to record the activity and I didn’t really know what to call it. And so basically you’ve done a lot in the world of ultra running, but also not just in the world of ultra running, I just say endurance creative sports. So actually I’ll ask you how our paths crossed, but Buzz, your reputation kind of preceeded you. I remember hearing the myth of, “Who is this man Buzz Burrell in Boulder?” And how he was coming up with all these crazy multi-sport awesome adventures. And it actually wasn’t until I joined the Ultimate Direction team, I was an athlete for your company for several years that I actually met you. And then it wasn’t actually until maybe my big injury that we actually started kind of getting out and doing things together. But yeah, I just remember this whole big air and this mystery surrounded by Buzz.
Buzz Burrell:
Well, Hillary, I have to ask, were you severely disappointed or how did that work out? I mean, apparently we’re still friends.
Hillary Allen:
I was obviously not disappointed. And one of the things I love about our friendship is that you just continue to inspire not only me, but I think just the entire ultra running community.
Buzz Burrell:
Thanks.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah. I don’t know if you have anything to add about how you met me, but…
Buzz Burrell:
I just remember this woman with this giant smile, going, “Wow, who’s that? That’s amazing.” So you lighted up and I think that who one is as a person, rather than who one is as an athlete is how we really connect.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, I completely agree. And so, why I invited you on this podcast today is because certainly, I mean, I’m a coach with CTS. We talk a lot about training, preparing for races, specifically ultra running, but another big aspect of the sport, at least personally for me, is being creative and exploring things that necessarily can’t be a race and something that’s kind of blowing up in the world of ultra running in the United States, but across the world, is this concept of the FKT, which is… I’m going to let you take it away. Can you explain what an FKT is?
Buzz Burrell:
Fastest known time is a great terminology because we don’t know. It’s not an official record. A race can have official timing, sanctioned course. FKTs will never have either of those. And so we can never be sure that it is the fastest time, so we call it the fastest known time. And that caught on immediately big time, all over the world. Two and a half, almost three years ago, I was in Beijing, China and the editor of a magazine speaking through a translator, asked me about FKTs, so right away it went everywhere. I think the reason is because it’s natural, it’s part of human nature. So human nature is to see what our limits are and test them. And that’s commonly done in races with and against other people. The nice way to think of an FKT is it’s the same human impulse, but not necessarily with or against other people, more often with nature, being in nature. It’s the same impulse actually.
Hillary Allen:
I love how you put that because I think one of the reasons that draws me to sport of course, is the ability to kind of test the human limits, right? You want to test how far you can push yourself physically, but there’s this other piece where you’re trying to kind of explore it, almost the boundaries of the human existence and the human experience. And I feel like yeah, that’s a really cool way to do it. And you’re not necessarily around a bunch of people. I know for me, ultra running and trail running, I like to kind of be solo sometimes. And these FKTs are a really good opportunity to push yourself to these extreme limits, but you’re also kind of experiencing these things in a really intimate setting.
Buzz Burrell:
Right, and that’s why a lot of the top people are getting in to FKTs. Races, again, are good. Obviously races have been here forever and will remain here forever as have FKTs. But the difference as you elucidated, Hillary, in particular for the serious athlete, is a race is kind of limited. The parameters you’re trying to solve for are actually fairly limited. You’re going to show up at a certain place at a certain time at a certain date, and they’re going to do this certain thing and someone’s going to be there saying, “Go that way. Here’s food and here’s water.” And FKT, there’s none of the above. And so for a good athlete and an experienced athlete, they want to add those other parameters into the equation to solve.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah. And this is actually, okay. So I love how you put that because it’s true. And sometimes certain races, maybe they put a bit more research into the course ahead of time. Most times though, you have things laid out for you. You don’t have to worry about directions. You don’t have to worry about food. All of that’s there provided for you. So the interesting part about FKTs, there’s actually different categories. So when you’re basically, and we’ll get into this later about how kind of you can do an FKT, but there’s three main categories as I’ve kind of categorized them in my head, but can you go into that and explain that?
Buzz Burrell:
Right? These three categories come from the world of thru-hiking and they’re called supported, self-supported, and unsupported. So all our FKTs on our website, fastestknowntime.com, fall into these three categories. So going back to the world of thru-hiking, the easiest way to talk about it is via the Appalachian trail for example. If someone meets you at the trail head, hands you food, that’s supported. See, that makes perfect sense. Now, if you do it without someone meeting you, that would be self-supported, [inaudible 00:09:20] the big trails cannot be unsupported because you can’t take all your own food and water. So that
Hillary Allen:
Yeah because these trails are insanely long, right?
Buzz Burrell:
No one’s going to hike for 2,000 miles, bringing all their own food. Well someone’s tried it, that’s another story. Someone’s definitely tried that. Didn’t go that well, not that far. He literally loaded up all his food for the entire Appalachian trail in Georgia, and it didn’t work, but any rate, so, and, and a big trail like that, you’re either going to go supported, people giving you stuff, or self-supported where you’re obtaining your supplies along the way. Unsupported is slightly different and that’s not practical in the really long trails. So bringing it back to something that’s fairly reasonable in length, say you have rim to rim to rim, the Grand Canyon. So that can definitely be done unsupported because it’s easy to bring all your own food. That can be done supported because it’s easy to have someone meet you somewhere. And it can be done self-supported where you drop a cache or you obtain food along the way.
Buzz Burrell:
And Hillary, the only slight distinctions, sorry to get into these little distinctions, but people really care about these distinctions, is if you obtain water from natural sources or even food from natural sources, you see, that’s okay. That’s not support. So if someone hikes in and gives you food, that’s supported, but if you’re on the John Muir trail and you’re going to a bear box where people have just ditched food, abandoned it and left it and picked it up, that’s not considered supported, that’s still self-supported.
Hillary Allen:
Got it. Or maybe you go during berry season and you’re just foraging for things. Although I wouldn’t recommend that because a lot of those plants are poisonous. Yeah. But I think this is really [inaudible 00:11:26] to me because it alludes to the fact that you can create these challenges, these extreme challenges. So for sure, you can kind of do an FKT, for instance the Grand Canyon, basically you run from the south rim to the north rim and then you run back, hence rim to rim to rim, right. This is a very popular one. And it’s a trail. Really the only obstacles you have to kind of take into account, or there’s donkey trains to kind of have to hike to basically not get held up by the donkeys. But also if the water is running on the north rim, if you need to kind of get an actual natural source, but basically an FKT style like this, you can kind of do it like a race, right?
Buzz Burrell:
You really shouldn’t get lost running rim to rim to rim.
Hillary Allen:
No, you should not. But so you can kind of dab your toe in the pond of FKTs and kind of do it like a race. Right? But then the other part is that you can do these extreme adventures and you can make it as hard or as difficult as you want. There can be completely off trail FKTs where you’re kind of bagging peaks. The one that comes to mind from my home state in Colorado is this FKT called the Nolan’s 14. Do you want to go into that one?
Buzz Burrell:
Well Nolan’s 14 goes back a number of years. And the idea was to see originally to see how many 14-ers, which means a mountain over 14,000 feet, someone could climb in a given period of time. So they went to the Sawatch range and established a route of sorts and went up and over 14 summits with the time cutoff being within 60 hours. It took a number of years, a number of attempts for one person to ever get it done. And now it’s called the Nolan’s 14. And as you said, Hillary, there is no route. You can do whatever you want. As long as you tag those 14 summits, you go up whatever way you want, you go down whatever you want. So there’s some strategy there because you might want to take a direct line that’s more technical, or you might want to take more distant line that’s technically more easy. So there’s some tactics there. And those tactics pertain to you as an individual. What’s your strength? What is your weakness? And there’s almost no trails. So you have to navigate. And then lastly, you get to decide, “When do I want to do this? Do I want to do this in August when the weather’s stable, everything’s dry? Or do I want to do this in June? When there’s snow, I get to glissade down a snow slope.” And so as you have said, Hillary…
Hillary Allen:
Or Post Hole in Boulder Fields.
Buzz Burrell:
Well, there’s that too. So indeed, good point, indeed. What’s the tactic here, what’s the strategy? And so in an FKT, there are much more tactics that pertain to you personally than there are in a race.
Hillary Allen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I think it’s so interesting. And even with this Nolan’s 14, this is just one example of many, but you can also choose. Some people, well, I mean, what is it, Alex Hamilton? Didn’t he do it unsupported?
Buzz Burrell:
Yeah. Yeah. He did. Andrew Hamilton did it unsupported and he did it in winter.
Hillary Allen:
Oh my God. Exactly, he just loves that route. Exactly. A route like this is already extremely difficult, but you can kind of up the ante a little bit and decide to do it supported, self-supported, unsupported. So yeah. So I would like to ask you, can you tell me one of your most memorable FKTs or at least one of your favorites? I know you’ve done many, but…
Buzz Burrell:
Well, I think I kind of got the whole multi-day trail running thing going back when I did the Colorado trail run, got an FKT on that, and then the very next year, we really took the John Muir trail to a new level. When we approach the four day Mark, which has subsequently been lowered significantly. But my favorite there with my friend, Peter Bakwin was seemingly much less significant, but it exemplified some of the things we’re talking about and how I enter into it. And that was Gannett Peak. Gannett is the highest in Wyoming. It’s in the Wind River range. I looked at all the records and I researched this. And that’s kind of part of the sport to be honest, is that research, understanding the place.
Buzz Burrell:
And people are either coming in from the north, which involved going over to low passes, which I didn’t really like the idea of that, or they’re coming in from the south and going over another steep pass, Bonnie Pass. And I said, “Why are they doing this? I don’t like this.” So I just studied the map. I said, “I don’t think we got to go this way at all.” So we just took a different route entirely from Green Lakes and then went up Wells Creek directly to the summit. Now all subsequent FKT attempts follow our route. And I like that. You see what I mean? You had to research it. You had to think about it. You weren’t just doing the trail. You weren’t doing what other people were doing and Wells Creek ended up being a little technical. So it was kind of tough. So people then back-
Hillary Allen:
Wait, define a little technical. Your version of technical is way different than my version.
Buzz Burrell:
I don’t want to give people the wrong impression, but we carried for the Glassier, because we weren’t sure how the Glassier was going to be, if it’s going to be heavily crevassed or not, a 5.5 millimeter Gemini cord, which is this static line, not strong, not a lead climbing line for any reason at all. So we got into this, about a five section technical getting through Wells Creek. I belayed Peter on the stupid little 5.5 bit of Gemini cord. That’s why I don’t really want to talk about this. I don’t want to tell people that this is how you should do things. And then we came back down that way and had to repeat it.
Buzz Burrell:
Subsequently, the next creek over is called Tourist Creek, which is nontechnical. So actually people do the same general route as us, but substitute Tourist Creek for Wells Creek and make it a little easier. But that was a good way to go. You get the chance to do some interesting things. You get to research it, you get to learn about the place, and you get to implement tactics that work well for you. So strategy is more important in an FKT attempt that it isn’t a race. A race is kind of my cardiovascular versus yours. In an FKT, there’s a lot of tactics and strategy that can swing it by 20 or 30%.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, oh man. And I’ve been to the Wind River range. It’s such a beautiful range. And like you said, it’s a really great way to get to know place and to study the maps and kind of figure out the terrain. And it’s also, I mean, I’m a scientist by training and it’s kind of this idea of trial and error, which I really like also.
Buzz Burrell:
The scientific method is trial and error.
Hillary Allen:
It is exactly. It works kind of by failure. Do you have a favorite FKT of someone? It can be in the past or currently?
Buzz Burrell:
I’m impressed. Gosh, a favorite is a tough one because, Hillary, I should let you know, three to four FKTs are submitted every day. It’s a lot, so as an outside looking in, people might think, “Oh, this is interesting. It’s sort of obscure,” or whatever, but there’s a group of people who are really into this. And so I see a lot. So to crush this down to one would be a little tricky for me.
Hillary Allen:
I actually do think this is a tough question. And I should actually say, to put a little asterisk by this, is that you were talking about three to four FKTs are submitted, basically submitted to this fastestknowntime.com website where basically you and Peter can review it to see if it’s legitimate, and then it’s public to the community so everyone can kind of reference it and see. It is in fact, you said this to me before we started, it’s about building a community through the FKTs. But also you see all of these things and they’re actually all being submitted because at the end of the year, we have this Fastest Known Time of the Year, kind of a countdown to some of the “best.” And I’ve been lucky enough to be on this committee to kind of review all of these FKTs that have been submitted from all different categories. So I would like to say, I’m asking you your “favorite,” and I know this isn’t going into picking the fastest known time of the year, but I just like to see kind of what you think is creative, what you think is cool with the different submissions of MKTs.
Buzz Burrell:
Okay. Well, Jared Campbell gave me a good idea, his suggestion for the FKT of the Year award, which is that Arctic Fox walked from Norway to Greenland in, I think it was 76 days, 1,176 miles. So that’s female unsupported, that’s this Arctic Fox. And so we’re liking that one, but for us humans for this year, boy, it’s a kind of a toss up Hilary, it’s three to four a day. It’s like, “Wow, this is interesting.” I will say going back a little bit, I really liked when string bean, Joe McConahey took four. I mean, he took a day off the Appalachian trail record going self-supported, no crew. And then Karel Sabbe, the Belgian dentist came over here and took four days off a record that had Jennifer Pharr Davis, David Horton, Scott Jurich, Karl Meltzer had. And he took four days off of it.
Buzz Burrell:
I’ve kind of liked that one, sorry to give you a few here, but then a year or so ago, this woman was going into the Navy. And so she decided to walk the coast of California before she joined the armed services. I thought this was so good. She walked right through LA and San Francisco, this wasn’t mountain top stuff. This was her vision. This was meaningful to her. And she kept this great blog describing the people she met and her personal experiences. So I kind of like the range here from people with full pedal to the metal, full gas, really crushing it, really getting it done, to a woman by herself who was having a personal life changing experience going through sometimes populated areas. It’s all part of the same spectrum.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah. Oh, yeah, that is wonderful. And what I also love about FKTs is just, it can be so personal. For me, I want to do the Sierra high route. I’ve been drawn to the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, and it’s off trail. I want to get out of my comfort zone and I’d have to use a compass and map to kind of navigate my way 200 miles to cross the Sierra Nevada. So, I think it’s a really great way to get to know a place and also to challenge myself. So that’s one that I have. Hopefully also, if the weather holds and there’s good snow pack, that’s also something to consider, but that’s also what makes it fun. So is there anything that you’re working on right now?
Buzz Burrell:
Well, I’ve done a lot of biking and paddling recently. I use a surf ski instead of a regular kayak, which is pretty fast. And as usual, I can’t resist going and doing something a little differently. So I paddled from Green River, the town of Green River, Utah, down a mineral bottom which was 67 miles in eight hours, this June. So kind of enjoying things like that. But I would like to get the legs back, going on the hiking, running thing again, and go back up and finish up the Wind River high route, which Andrew Skurka and I pioneered, which unfortunately never exactly completed. Maybe you and I can get up on the SHR. That might be fun.
Hillary Allen:
Oh yeah, I would love that.
Buzz Burrell:
And then right outside the door here, you mentioned the LA freeway, which I invented, and now a couple other people have done it pretty fast. Kilian has apparently mentioned it. So that’d be kind of interesting to get some more attention going there.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, do you want to tell us a little bit about the LA freeway? Because I think that this… So we mentioned that I think another one of the interesting parts of FKTs is this idea of combining sports. So paddling obviously, running across the Grand Canyon, adding in a little bit of a swim, or what I’ve really gotten into recently is biking to a trail. I did the Long’s Peak. Well, for me, it was a biathlon, but rode my bike from Boulder to Long’s Peak, ran the peak and then rode my bike back. And so that’s a really cool aspect. You can just get so creative with these FKTs, but can you tell us a little bit about LA freeway and why this one is super cool?
Buzz Burrell:
Well I like it because if you’re standing in Boulder County, anywhere around here and you look west and look at the mountains, you’re looking at the route. You have a route that basically takes two days to complete. The FKT is certainly in one day around 16 hours by really world-class people. But if you’re very good, it’s two days, you don’t even need a map. You go up on Long’s Peak, thus the L, and you traverse the ridge to Arapaho peak, thus the A, and you just stay on the ridge, you’re staying on the continental divide. You almost don’t need a map. It’s just like, boom, boom, boom. You can see it. And so it has a logical nature to it. You see, it’s not contrived. I think the classic mountain lines are not contrived. They have a natural line to them.
Buzz Burrell:
And then you just get up there on the skyline. The multi-sport aspect of this particular one, is there some fifth class climbing involved. Anyone who’s going to do this is probably not going to use a rope. They should be good enough that they can manage up to five, six free solo. And then you just got to stay up high on fairly rough train for a long period of time. And it’s right outside of Boulder. I mean, your cell phone coverage. You can almost look down. “Hi.” So it’s not up there in Alaska. It’s not in the winds. It’s not in some swamp, some desert, it’s right here available for almost anyone to try.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah. Almost anyone. I mean, you have to be pretty good with the scrambling technique.
Buzz Burrell:
You have to be pretty good. But we should mention that Hillary though, because the reason there’s three to four FKTs coming in a day is that type of route exists everywhere. Whether you’re in the Ozarks, the Appalachians, no matter where you live, there is a route out of your back door that has meaning that has worthiness, that someone else might like to know about and try. And that’s why people are giving it a go. They’re finding something that is meaningful to them, creating it and then sharing it with the public on fastestknowntime.com.
Hillary Allen:
That’s awesome. You just summed up why I love everything about FKTs. And I think the last thing to talk about, what I want to end with is like you’re saying, you’re getting submissions for FKTs, three to four a day. So how do you go about doing this and how do you submit something for the Fastest Known Time of the year or just an FKT in general?
Buzz Burrell:
Great. Well, let’s mention first you have to train for it like you have to train for everything else. And since this is Carmichael Training System, extremely, extremely well-regarded training group, I will mention the specificity aspect, which is part of any training program. So if you’re training for a marathon, a half marathon, or whatever it is you’re doing, you get specific with it. And so for an FKT, it’s the same thing. And so you’re going to have, as you did in the Long’s Peak duathlon bike section, you’re going to have to train a little bit with the bike. But if you don’t train with the bike, that’s 44 miles each way, so you have to add that in just like on the LA freeway, you better be training for the fourth and fifth class terrain and whatever it is, you have to be specific. In terms of how to submit, certainly go to the website and have a look around and understand what’s going on. It has this big map there. You can click on the map for your area and see what’s already happening there. And then if the route is already established, then you just go for the time and then if you’ve gone for the time you fill out this little form online and submit it. If the route hasn’t been established, then you establish first the route and then the time, two separate processes. Does that make sense?
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Buzz Burrell:
And I should note that you mentioned Peter and I, Peter does it all. Peter does just this fantastic amount of work. I’m I’m just a pretty face, that’s all.
Hillary Allen:
Yes, you are Buzz. And you are the face of the FKT. To mention also, it’s not just in the US, it’s worldwide. So these FKTs are popping up all over the world. And so a really cool phenomenon and yeah, to just encourage everyone to get out there and be creative in the place that you live and kind of think up and dream up these routes, combine sports, try something new. Yeah. I think you guys have done a great job.
Buzz Burrell:
Thank you, Hillary. And come back to the website for the FKT of the Year award at the end of this year. And there will be a separate one for Europe as well.
Hillary Allen:
Oh great. I was actually just about to ask about that. Cool. I better start [inaudible 00:30:05] where I am, the Alps.
Buzz Burrell:
You’re asking me what’s next for me, but I should be asking you what’s next for you? You’re there in France. You’ve got some opportunity.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah, I know. Right. I’ve I have, I’m currently in Annecy right now and I’m actually thinking of the Annecy skyline. I’ve been looking up all these peaks or maybe running from here to Chamonix and in the coming year I might have to bring skis too. So yeah. Yeah. But thanks so much Buzz, for being on the podcast. It was such a pleasure talking with you.
Buzz Burrell:
Likewise, Hillary.
Hillary Allen:
Yeah. And if anyone has any questions, go onto the website, fastestknowntime.com and yeah. Start getting out there. Be creative. Yeah. Thanks so much Buzz, and I hope to talk to you soon.
Buzz Burrell:
Likewise.